Steamships and their story

by E. Keble Chatterton

The beautiful picture [facing page 192] was taken in Holyhead Harbour in June, 1909, and is a study in comparisons. At the left, first come the two small steam craft, then the White Star passenger tender, the Magnetic, a twin-screw steamer of 619 tons, and, finally, the other White Star twin-screw mammoth Baltic, of 23,876 tons. The Magnetic happens to be less than 100 tons smaller than the little Sirius, which was the first steamer to cross the Atlantic entirely under steam power in 1838. Therefore, if we but imagine in place of the twin-screw tender the paddle Sirius, we can form some fairly accurate idea of the extent to which the Atlantic steamship has developed in less than seventy years, a development that neither Fulton nor anyone else could have foretold in their wildest flights of imagination. This Baltic, with her 24,000 tons, is one of the largest vessels in the world—about 9,000 tons larger than Noah’s Ark, if we take the Biblical cubit as equal to a foot and a half, which makes that historic craft about 15,000 tons register. The Baltic has a length of 725¾ feet; the Ark measured 450 feet in length. The Baltic can carry with the utmost ease and luxury 3,000 passengers, as well as 350 crew. Just how many animals she could put away in her holds as well, if called upon, I do not know; but in any case it would be able to put up a keen competition with the capacities of Noah’s craft.

Here, again, we find a White Star ship excelling not in speed, but in size, for she was designed to do only 16½ knots at the outside. She is propelled by quadruple-expansion engines. She made her appearance in 1905, and is additionally interesting, as she exhibits a slight divergence from the ten beams to the length principle, which governed for so long a time the White Star ships; to come up to this rule this vessel would have to be another 30 feet in length.

We have already explained the reason which underlies the comparatively moderate speed of these ships, and mentioned that the question of economical steaming was at the root of the matter. As an example we might quote the case of the Majestic, belonging to the same line, as an instance. This vessel consumes 316 tons of coal per day to get a speed of 19 knots; the Baltic, a vessel nearly twice and a half the size, requires only 260 tons of fuel a day for her 16½ knots.

And so we come to those two leviathans which form, without exception, the most extraordinary, the most massive, the fastest, and the most luxurious ships that ever crossed an ocean. Caligula’s galleys, which were wondrously furnished with trees, marbles and other luxuries which ought never to desecrate the sweet, dignified character of the ship, were less sea-craft than floating villas exuding decadence at every feature. There are some characteristics of the Mauretania and Lusitania, with their lifts, their marbles, curtains, ceilings, trees, and other expressions of twentieth century luxury, which, while appreciated by the landsman and his wife, are nauseating to the man who loves the sea and its ships for their own sakes, and not for the chance of enjoying self-indulgence in some new form. But all the same these two Cunarders are ships first, and floating mansions only in a secondary sense. They are even more than that: they are ocean-greyhounds of a new breed with a pace that surpasses any other of the mercantile sea dogs.

These two historic craft are regarded in different ways by different people. You may think of them as hotels, you may look at them as representing the outcome of the greatest minds in naval architecture, ship-construction and marine engineering. Or, again, you may reckon up how much capital is tied up within their walls, how much material they have eaten up, how many hundreds of men they have given, and are giving, employment to. But whichever way you regard them, from whatever standpoint you choose, there is nothing comparable to them, there are no standards whatsoever by which to judge them. We can only doff our hats to the organising and originating geniuses who in one way or another brought these marvels from out of the realm of impossibility to the actuality of the broad Atlantic. Cover them with tier upon tier of decks, scatter over them a forest of ventilators, roofs and chimneys, till they look like the tops of a small town; fill them inside with handsome furniture, line their walls with costly decorations; throw in a few electric cranes, a coal mine, several restaurants, the population of a large-sized village and a good many other things besides; give them each a length equal to that of the Houses of Parliament, a height greater than the buildings in Northumberland Avenue, disguise them in any way you please, and for all that these are ships, which have to obey the laws of Nature, of the Great Sea, just as the first sailing ship and the first Atlantic steamship had to show their submission. I submit that to look upon these two ships as mere speed-manufacturers engaged in the record industry, as palatial abodes, or even as dividend-earners is an insult to the brains that conceived them, to the honourable name of “ship” which they bear.

The Mauretania and Lusitania are the outcome of an agreement made between the British Government and the Cunard Steamship Company, in which it was contracted to produce two steamships “capable of maintaining a minimum average ocean speed of from 24 to 25 knots an hour in moderate weather.” In every way these ships have exceeded the dimensions of the Great Eastern. There was no precedent for them in dimensions, engine power, displacement or aught else. It was not to be expected that such gigantic productions as these could be the outcome of one mind; such a thing would be impossible. It was only as a result of an exhaustive inquiry made on behalf of the Cunard Company by some of the most experienced ship-builders and marine engineers of this country, aided by the constructive and engineering staff of the Admiralty, as well as by the preliminary knowledge derived from models, that the best form for obtaining this unprecedented speed was evolved. Whatever was best in existing knowledge or materials was investigated. A special committee, representing the Cunard Company, the Admiralty and private industries went deeply into the question of engines; and with right judgment, and, it must be said, with no little courage and enterprising foresight, decided, after conferring with Mr. Parsons, to choose turbines, applied to four shafts, each carrying a single screw.

THE “MAURETANIA,” WHEN COMPLETING AT WALLSEND-ON-TYNE.

From a Photograph. By Permission of the Cunard Steamship Co.

These two absolutely unique steamships differ entirely from the previous fast liners that we have enumerated, as well as from those large “intermediates” with moderate speed. The size of these mammoths was decided upon, not with reference to their cargo-carrying capacity—for they have practically no space for this—but in order to be able to steam at an average speed of 25 knots in moderate weather for 3,000 miles, to carry enough coal to last them the voyage when consuming about a 1,000 tons per day, and to carry an adequate number of passengers to allow the ships to pay their way. It was impossible, therefore, to have given them any smaller dimensions. I make this statement on the authority of no less an expert than Sir William H. White, K.C.B., the illustrious naval architect who was connected so closely with the birth of the Mauretania. It was a happy coincidence that the turbine had already shown itself capable of so much that to employ it in these ships seemed a justifiable experiment. For otherwise, in order to obtain the requisite speed the vessel could not have contained the large amount of propelling apparatus. The working speeds of these two ships exceeds by 1½ knots the highest speeds ever attained in the Atlantic service. Had the reciprocating engine been employed instead of the turbine there would have been serious risk of troublesome vibration, the shafts would have had to have been of very large dimensions; large-sized propellers would have been necessary, and these latter, of course, would have been unfavourable to high efficiency of propulsion, whilst with the more rapidly revolving turbine the screws are still of moderate diameter. But apart altogether from the questions of economy of space, liability to accident and so on, there was a national consideration to be reckoned. This country has now for many hundreds of years prided itself on being the mistress of the seas, a title that was only won after serious, hard struggles. Although that title has reference rather to matters immediately connected with the Royal Navy, yet national industry and a series of private enterprises had, as we have seen, given us also an analogous position in regard to our mercantile marine. This was until the German Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, followed by the Kaiser Wilhelm II. and the Deutschland, took away—in speed, at least—this title. It was, therefore, a matter affecting our honour and our pride that we should put on to the water some ship or ships that should be capable of winning back the “blue ribbon” of the Atlantic, and restoring to us the supremacy of speed at sea. There is, however, a more practical consideration. Without the assistance of the Government it would have been financially impracticable even for so wealthy a corporation as the Cunard Company to cause such a couple of ships as these to be built. And yet it was worth while that the nation should help the Company, for in the event of war breaking out between us and another first-class nation, it would not be long before we should be starved into submission if by any chance our over-seas food supply were cut off. It has been suggested with every appearance of probability, that in such a condition the Mauretania and Lusitania might render the highest service by making rapid passages across the Atlantic and, being there loaded up with grain, might hurry back home again. Their speed alone would save them from the enemy, except perhaps from the latest and fastest types of fighting-ships. But if convoyed by the Indomitable and Invincible battleship-cruisers, with their enormous speed and equally enormous “smashing power,” the chances would be in favour of the grain-ships reaching port. Thus when the British Government advanced the sum of £2,000,000 sterling (which amount represents about one-half of the total cost of the two vessels) it was acting with a wisdom and a power for looking well ahead that is not always possessed by political bodies. With their very considerable capacities for passenger accommodation, these two ships would also be invaluable if called upon to act as transports.